Small-Scale Terrorist Attacks Using Chemical and Biological Agents: An Assessment Framework and Preliminary Comparisons

Small-Scale Terrorist Attacks Using Chemical and Biological Agents: An Assessment Framework and Preliminary Comparisons

This report assesses the threat posed by small-scale terrorist attacks using biological, chemical, and toxin agents rather than traditional risk assessments which focus on mass casualty attacks.

2004

Government policy towards chemical and biological terrorism has focused on agents that can cause mass casualties through catastrophic terrorism, which may not provide protection against those that would be useful in small scale attacks. This framework ranks agents based on their usefulness in a small-scale terrorist attack through criteria such as ease of acquisition, public health impact, resistance to medical treatment, ease of dissemination, prophylaxis and weaponization. It found that agents which are effective in small scale attacks are not the same as those that are effective in large scale attacks. Furthermore, there are potentially increasing reasons for terrorists to use biological or chemical weapons in small scale attacks, such as increasing desire for a covert attack, willingness to die for beliefs and spread by self-infection, and the existence of previous terrorist attacks using these weapons. Provides extensive agent-specific comparison of characteristics for consideration in utility as weapons.